posted 02-17-2015 02:34 PM               

I am lucky enough to live within 90 minutes of him, but he has clients from all over the world. His name is J. Franklin (Frank) Mowery, and he has worked miracles on about ten items for me over the last several years. His work does not come dirt-cheap, but if you have an item that is virtually worthless because of its condition, it might be worth an investment of a couple of hundred dollars (or a bit more, depending on the time and techniques required) to get it back on its feet.

I've brought him items stained with mold, and picked them up a couple of weeks later brilliant white. Items that have been folded for decades emerge flat as if they're hot off the printing press.

I'll tell you about one specific item. A couple of years ago I bought a signed 16x20 photo of the Group 3 astronauts for reasonably little on eBay because moisture had gotten into the frame at some point and the photo was stuck to the glass. Frank got it off the glass with very little damage. The only loss was the white area where Walt Cunningham had signed it - and at Spacefest last year he kindly, carefully signed it again, in his early-60's style, with the same kind of pen for a perfect match.